Sawyer Brown's New Album Desperado Troubadours Reunites Them with Their 'Biggest Fan' — Blake Shelton

Mark Miller says Shelton — who produced the group’s latest album — “can blow me away with memories of records and songs, especially from the ’80s and ’90s.”

Sawyer Brown’s Mark Miller has something to say about Blake Shelton, but he knows Shelton won’t like it.

“He’s absolutely brilliant,” Miller, 65, tells PEOPLE from his home studio in Nashville of the country music superstar. “Blake has that ‘Jethro Bodine’ part of him that’s kind of goofy and he wants to meditate but he is really smart and has an amazing memory. It can blow my mind with memories of records and songs, especially from the 80s and 90s.”

It’s a recall and memory made famous as Shelton joined his musical heroes Sawyer Brown to produce their brand new album Desperate troubadours.

‘Desperado Troubaduurs’ by Sawyer Brown.

Curb Records

“Blake is such a band historian and such a fan,” says Miller of the ’90s hit-making band also made up of Gregg “Hobie” Hubbard, Joe “Curly” Smyth and Shayne Hill. “He also has great instincts. To be a producer, you have to have an instinct in the studio to be able to guide and navigate through a song.”

And Sawyer Brown strongly relied on this instinct during the creation of the entire album, but especially during the creation of the astonishing song “God Bless This Road”.

“I felt like we were struggling with that song when we were writing it,” Miller says of the song, which he co-wrote with fellow songwriter Hubbard. “I felt like Blake saved that song. Blake came in and we sat down at the piano, and we worked it out. That’s something that Blake really brought to the studio — that instinct that he has.”

Not only was Miller impressed with Shelton’s talent, but also with his incredible work ethic during filming Desperate troubadours.

“We used to tease him about coming in there and letting help in because he was always the first in the studio and the last to leave,” says Miller, who recently wrote a book The Boys and Me: My Life in the Country Music Supergroup Sawyer Brown.

Sawyer Brown.

Dean Dixon

Certainly, creation Desperate troubadours was as much a treat for Shelton as it was for the CMA, ACM and CMT award-winning group, which is currently celebrating its 40th anniversary.

“When Blake was approached about producing the record, he called me within five minutes and just said, ‘Man, I know you’re already a great producer and I don’t even know what to offer, but you’re my hero,'” Miller recalls. . “He said, ‘I have to do this.'”

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Sawyer Brown.

Courtesy of Sawyer Brown Band

And they did do most of it in just a few days.

“Blake and [his wife] Gwen [Stefani] he flew in from Los Angeles and we literally camped out in the studio for three or four days,” says Miller, who also worked with co-writers such as Mac McAnally, Cody Jinks and Tennessee Jet on Desperate troubadours.

During those days, the members of Sawyer Brown also reworked the touching “This Side of the Sky,” a song Miller re-wrote with Hubbard, which he calls an “extension” of Sawyer Brown’s big hit “The Walk.”

“‘The Walk’ was my experience with losing my grandfather,” recalls Miller, who is currently on tour with his bandmates Sawyer Brown. “Hobie actually had the title ‘This Side of the Sky’ and this song idea for a long time. He lost his mother and I lost my mother right before COVID.”

He pauses. “I know when I lost my mom, it was weird. I kept wanting to pick up the phone and call her. And that’s kind of what this song is about. It’s about still being able to have that conversation from ‘this side’ of heaven’ because we know where are.”

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Source: HIS Education